Social media influencers are taking over the world.....literally!

By: Ima Linzag 

The prevalence of social media influencers is undeniable these days. They seem to be popping up everywhere you look these days. You can spot Youtube stars in television commercials, and you can even spot collaboration collections between beauty gurus and cosmetic companies when shopping for makeup. However, one area you may not expect to have influencers involved in is politics.

            In Singapore, the government was concerned with its citizens’ lacking engagement with their budget plan for 2018. As a solution for that problem, the government hired fifty social media influencers in order to encourage their followers to give government feedback about the proposed financial plan.

The Singaporean government may have been on the right track with reaching out to influencers for engagement, as the pervasiveness of them will continue to grow. Facebook recently changed its algorithms for their newsfeed, which decreases the posts that users will see from brands and corporations in exchange for more activity from friends and family. The changes in algorithm have to do with how users interact with posts from friends and family versus those of brands. Influencers who interact with their followers in similar ways and “maintain authentic relationships with their audience” will also reap the benefits from these changes on the platform.